1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to portable hand-held electronic touch screen devices such as smart phones, electronic book readers, and tablet computers, and more particularly to wall-mounting such devices, integrating such devices with various control and automation systems, and augmenting these devices with various external manual hard buttons and/or actuators and/or indicators.
2. Background Art
In the field of control and automation, custom designed and programmed wall-mounted touch panels provide a sophisticated means for interfacing and controlling home theater, lighting, environmental, and security systems. However, such custom wall-mounted touch panels are very expensive in comparison to the various commercially available mass-produced portable hand-held electronic touch screen devices, such smart phones, electronic book (eBook) readers, and tablet computers.
Many such touch screen devices employ a touch screen interface along with generic manual controls and/or actuators, while other smart touch screen devices employ a touch screen interface alone. Further, these smart touch screen devices are capable of executing various third-party applications (i.e., computer programs) that perform a variety of functions (e.g., play music, show video, etc.). However, these smart touch screen devices are not wall-mountable and do not readily interface with, and control, home theater, lighting, environmental, and/or security systems.
Consequently, there exists a need for a system that enables any of the inexpensive commercially available mass-produced hand-held electronic touch screen devices to be removeably mounted to a wall and interface with, and control, home theater, lighting, environmental, and/or security systems.